Bare knuckles and back rooms

Who else but Ed Rollins - the brilliant, bare-knuckled political consultant - would dare give us the inside story on how Washington really works? Famously outspoken, Rollins is a true maverick whose gift for winning campaigns is matched only by his talent for generating controversy. Now, in this astonishingly candid book, he delivers a no-holds-barred, hugely entertaining account of his thirty-year career in American politics. Rollins has worked for almost every major Republican politician of the past two decades, but he was never a member of the Washington aristocracy. Raised in the tough shipyard town of Vallejo, California, he fought as a championship amateur boxer and won over 160 bouts. His love of politics was kindled when he worked for Bobby Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1968, but after Kennedy's assassination and a life-changing experience during a violent anti-war demonstration, he joined the Republican party. By 1981, he had worked his way up to a job in the Reagan White House; the following year, he became the president's top political adviser. He has battled at the center of the political arena ever since, and he and his candidates have won far more often than they have lost. . If Rollins loves anything more than a good fight, it's a good story. Here is Richard Nixon complaining to him about the lack of a "nut-cutter" in the Reagan administration; Nancy Reagan berating him for his atrocious attire; Barbara Bush telling him he's not welcome in the White House; Ross Perot wailing about how expensive campaign advertising is; Arianna Huffington hiring a private detective to investigate an unfriendly journalist. But Rollins has made some spectacular blunders of his own, and he tells stories on himself too - most particularly when he provides the first full account of his role in the scandal that followed Christine Todd Whitman's election as governor of New Jersey.